


In the Drift

by lokiyan



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-14
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-23 10:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/925298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lokiyan/pseuds/lokiyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pacific Rim AU. Jon Snow was a star jaegar pilot until Robb, his co-pilot, was killed. Upon his return to the program, he meets a familiar face. (Jon as Raleigh, Sansa sort of as Mako, ends with a twist for those who have seen the movie).</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Drift

**Author's Note:**

> This will make no sense if you have not seen the movie.

It was selfish, he knew. The world was ending and perhaps, once upon a time, he could have done something about it. Instead of standing up to fight, the way Robb would have, he scurried off to a frozen corner of the world he called home. The dank office was lined with blueprints of a failing project that was fundamentally cruel – one that condemned millions of people to death even in the best of scenarios. Jon Snow had begun as a construction worker on the wall but quickly saw himself in a leadership position that kept him in this dungeon with his fingertips aching for the immense power they once held.

 

It was this power that made it difficult to say no.

 

He had not seen Stannis Baratheon in years, since the memorial service for Robb. There was no body, of course. Knifehead had made certain of it. All that was left was the gaping hole left in him when Robb was torn away while the neural bridge held. The fear, the pain – all of it grew within him like a cancer that could only be stopped by the Alaskan snow. Yet here he was again, asking something that was so broken inside Jon that he could do nothing but refuse. He had turned his back but Marshal Baratheon was never one to give up.  “The world is ending, Ranger. Would you rather die here or in a jaeger?”

 

***

 

It had been years since he last saw Sansa and she looked more like his adoptive mother than she ever did before and she looked so much like Robb it made his heart clench. Limbs that were soft and lithe were now toned with lean muscle and her hair was tied back and away from her face. She had him on the floor of the kwoon in a minute flat, her staff pressed across his chest and he feels her breath on his face. “3-2.”

 

When Ms. Shireen said she had put together a list of co-pilot candidates, the adoptive sister he had left behind was the furthest person from his mind. It’s logical, of course. Jaegar co-pilots tend to have some sort of strong bond – family, lovers – and having been brought up together, the two shared plenty of memories. They never bonded the way he and Robb, or even he and Arya, had, but all the same she was the closest thing to family he had.

 

The Sansa of his memories though, even after Onibaba’s attack on their family all those years ago that left Sansa, Robb, and himself all alone in the world, was always bright and sunny, sweet and soft to her brothers’ rough housing. She was only thirteen when Robb died and had enrolled in the Jaeger Academy last he heard. He had no doubt she would do well – despite what everyone else thought of her, she was always bright – but he never thought she would be a ranger.

 

“I’ve seen enough. Snow, report to the hangar in 2 hours for my final decision.” The marshal’s voice rang out and they were dismissed. Sansa rolled onto her back beside him as they caught their breaths.

 

“You’re my co-pilot.” Jon huffed. His fingers found hers and he felt it even stronger than before. She turned her face and smiled at him. They were drift compatible.

 

***

 

Jon never thought he’d find himself in a conn-pod again, yet here he was, suited up in his second skin. Wordlessly, Sansa takes the left side since his old injury would severely limit his motions.  That was always her way, quiet and unassuming even in her care for others. It made him smile to see some things never changed. “I expected the Marshal to make an appearance.”

 

“He is busy with Drs. Seaworth and Melisandre in the lab. He also may be… a little upset with me.” He raised a brow in question. “I wasn’t supposed to be on that list.”

 

“You’re good, Sansa. You deserved to be there.”

 

She smiled sadly. “It’s difficult to explain. No matter. You’ll be in my head in a few minutes anyway.”

 

“Initiating neural handshake.”  He could feel the old girl firing up. Ghost Wind was a beauty and, in his absence, Sansa poured her heart into her repairs. Jon felt that familiar pang of guilt kick him full in the chest again. He should have been here.

 

***

 

They curled up in his bed together, the way they and Robb used to during those first few months when reporters kept shoving their cameras into their faces. The lone wolves, they called them. All they did was survive. The post-drift hangover was exhausting and neither could be away from the other for more than a few feet before feeling the pull. Jon wrapped his limbs around her. She had done well for her first time in the drift, if not a bit shaky here and then, especially in her recollections of that day in Wintervale up north when they lost everything.

 

Jon caressed her face as he chewed on the memories he had glimpsed - Stannis taking her in after he left, her friendship with Shireen, bending over her desk with measurements and training in the kwoon. The heavy, heavy burden of guilt in her that mirrored his. “I killed him,” she whispered as though she knew just what he was thinking.

 

She probably did.

 

The Lannister twins. All that was known to the press was that in the midst of fighting two category three kaijus, the pilots of Leonis Major fell out of alignment and became sitting ducks while the world watched on in horror. No one ever knew why. No one, apparently, except for Sansa, who had to shoulder the burden all on her own. “It wasn’t your fault.”

 

“They fought over _me_.”

 

“You didn’t _make_ him love you.” _Didn’t she?_ He felt her doubts without her even having to voice them. He had seen their torrid affair unfold before him in the drift. Leonis Major was her side project and over time, Jaime Lannister grew used to her company and even enjoyed it while his twin reacted in the opposite. To her, there could only be one woman in both her brother and her jaeger’s life.

 

“How often do you think they were like this?” Her eyes were blankly staring at his throat, her tone steady and soft.

 

Jon pulled a face. The rumors between the twins always made him uneasy. Brothers and sisters shouldn’t... yet, here he was. With her. “We’re different.”

 

“Aren’t we?”

 

“We’re not brother and sister.” She snapped her eyes up to his. He had surprised even himself. When had he stopped seeing her as his sister? “Not... not really. Not in the way that counts.”

 

She turned to her side facing away from him, the cotton of her nightshirt against his bare chest. The smell of disappointment lingered in the air like a cheap perfume.

 

***

 

They were fighting against it and it showed. In the drift, he knew she felt it too - this pull between them that surpassed that he had felt with Robb. We’re not brother and sister. The more they saw of each other’s memories in the drift, the more they wanted and the more they fought. When Fire Kraken, a horrid name for a jaeger if Jon ever heard one, had to rescue Ghost Wind from a category three they should have easily eliminated, Sansa bit her lip until it bled. She bore down on her jaw when Theon Greyjoy boasted of his success and delighted in their failure and Marshal Baratheon had given them a scolding as well.

 

“Perhaps I was right, Sansa. You weren’t ready.”

 

It wasn’t fair, Jon wanted to yell. What of their previous wins, the press they garnered and the funding they secured for the PPDC? Newspapers were still showing the now famed picture of Ghost Wind using the sword that Sansa had, in a moment of bittersweet sentimentality, named Needle to chop the head off a category four. In his mind, he felt her sink in defeat.

 

It’s not obedience, she once told him, it’s respect.

 

He understood, but sometimes he just found it difficult.

 

***

 

As far as he was concerned, the whole thing was disastrous. Of course, it wasn’t her - no, she was perfect, all soft milk skin and bright blue eyes. Their explosive coupling late one night resolved their alignment issue when they finally gave in to all of Ghost Wind’s coaxing. The hole that Robb had left was filled to the brim and then some and in the dark, away from the world, they were perfect together.

 

But before the cameras, before the crew and everyone outside the drift, they were just brother and sister. The words turned his stomach and he knew it was causing her additional stress as well - he could feel her throbbing at the temples. Jon wanted to shout: we’re not them! We’re not them!

  
But no, how could they ever taint the Stark name the way the Lannisters tainted theirs?

 

***

 

“We’re canceling the apocalypse.”

 

With Theon’s arm out of commission, Stannis Baratheon revealed himself to be more than a strategist by stepping into the conn-pod of Fire Kraken himself. They were at the breach, armed with the information derived from Dr. Melisandre’s insane idea of drifting with a kaiju brain. They had to end this. Now.

 

“That’s it, sir. We’re out of ammo.” Jon shouted to main control.

 

“Just a bit more, Ranger. We’ve got to keep going.” In the harsh light of the breach, Jon could see Fire Kraken fighting her way through while Jon and Sansa held off Scunner and Slattern, a category four and five.

 

 _Jon_. He heard her through the drift. _We’re not completely out. We have to clear the way for the lady._ And he knew what she meant. This was it.

 

“Sir, we’re going to take the shot.”

 

“What are you talking about, Ranger?”

 

“Robb used to always say, if you have a shot, take it. We’re a walking nuclear reactor. We got this. You just make sure you finish your end of this.”

 

“Ranger, no-” But Sansa had already begun to detonate their beloved jaeger. “Sansa, you’re a brave girl.”

 

“Give them hell, Marshal. A nuclear winter the likes they’ve never seen.” Sansa never spoke aloud when she was in the drift and everyone listening in the mainframe knew this was her farewell.

 

They removed their helmets and held each other’s hands, a grip to substitute the kids they will never have, the kisses they will never share, the love they will never make. In the last moment, they watched Fire Kraken make it through to the breach before the explosion took them, their minds entangled within the drift.

 

This was how the co-pilots of Ghost Wind were remembered. A brother and a sister who sacrificed themselves for the world. Nothing more, nothing less.


End file.
